Time to stand alone, again

Along my travels I have learned many things, but India has really taught me well. I must say my original assessment was completely based off of my former comforts of home and well, the rest of the developed world. It isn’t that I can’t live in this type of world, it is simply that I am a foreigner, in a VERY foreign country. Craig told me over and over that he has never seen this type of living, not in any other country he has been in and he has been in quite a few others throughout Asia and the rest of the world. He says that this tops the scale for him, as the country he feels the most unsafe in.

“Who are we but what we see?”
– Thievery Corporation, All That We Perceive

But how do I feel? I’m not so sure. I go outside and people stare at me, I feel their eyes burning through my head. I walk around as the only white person in town and being a woman makes it much worse. I ignore stares in my own country and all the others I have been in but in India, it is impossible not to feel watched. Every single soul who realizes that I am white, fixes their eyes on me and there are tons of people around. The only thing I have not done is show fear. Being a woman in this country, a white woman, who shows no fear, is by far the most foreign thing they have apparently ever seen.

“Miraculous! He could truly see into people for the first time.”
– Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Even though I wear Indian apparel to “blend in” I don’t much blend in at all. Of course it takes a little of the focus away from me, but not completely. I don’t get taken advantage of anymore regarding fares of any sort but I still get stared at and people still want to take my picture. Being alone in Mumbai has really made an impact already, even though it has only been a short time. I was with Craig throughout the past two weeks in India, but now I stand alone. Now I really get to see and feel what it is like and I hope that my original assessment may be even the slightest bit wrong.

“And yet he never felt panic. It was an abstract thought.”
– Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test